Four terror suspects held over Thai bomb plots

June 11 2003

Three Thais and a Singaporean have been arrested on charges of planning a series of bomb attacks against Western diplomatic missions, including the Australian embassy, and a popular tourist spot in Bangkok.

Thai officials said the three Thai Muslims were arrested in the southern province of Narathiwat which borders Malaysia yesterday. Singaporean officials said the Singaporean was detained in Bangkok on May 16.

"They were involved in bomb plots against the United States, Australian and British embassies and a tourist spot in Bangkok," a senior officer from the National Intelligence Agency told reporters after the Thai arrests.

"They were wanted on Thai and Singapore arrest warrants for threatening national security," he said on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said Arifin bin Ali, alias John Wong Ah Hung, 42, was a senior Singaporean member of the regional terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiah (JI), accused of involvement in the plot.

The ministry did not specifically link him to the Thai arrests but said he was accused of being involved in plots to attack five foreign embassies in Bangkok. He was now being held in Singapore, it said.

The Thai National Intelligence Agency official said that the Nana area, a major nightspot popular with Westerners off downtown Sukhumvit Road, was targeted in the plot.

Regional police commander Lieutenant-General Paisan Thangaitrong said the three Thai suspects, members of the country's minority Muslim community, were arrested in southern Narathiwat province.

"One was a medical doctor and the other two were a Muslim teacher and his son. We have explicit evidence from both here and overseas that they were a threat to national security," he told AFP.

A senior special branch officer said that the three, who were arrested at 6am, local time, were linked with two Thai Muslims detained in Cambodia last month on suspicion of belonging to JI.

JI is accused of carrying out last October's bombing on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, which left 202 people dead, mostly Westerners and including 88 Australians. It is also believed to be the Asian arm of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network.

Cambodian authorities backed with US support last month smashed a radical Islamic network and charged three men with JI membership, two Thais and an Egyptian.

Lieutenant-General Paisan said the three Thais had been detained at an undisclosed location and were undergoing questioning by authorities, including by Special Branch Police, who oversee security at foreign embassies in the kingdom.

Fearful of damage to its lucrative tourism industry, the government has consistently denied that any active members of JI are present in Thailand, but admitted after the Cambodian arrests that there were inactive members there.

There was no immediate comment from the government, whose leader Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is on a five-day visit to the United States. He is due to meet US President George Bush to discuss terrorism and regional security issues.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is due in the region next week to attend a meeting of foreign ministers hosted by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Phnom Penh.

The issue of regional terrorism is likely to be high on the agenda of the talks.

Jemaah Islamiah, whose name means "Islamic Community", dreams of creating a pan-Islamic state in South-East Asia.

Since the September 11 attacks, scores of alleged members of JI have also been detained in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Last December, Thailand admitted that al-Qaeda's top South-East Asian operative, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, had entered the kingdom briefly.

Media reports citing an FBI investigation said the Indonesian militant held a meeting of Arab and South-East Asian militants in southern Thailand where he urged them to attack "soft targets" such as nightclubs and restaurants.